


Gap

by Flame (Steve_X)



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Hurt Steve, M/M, Near Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24308980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steve_X/pseuds/Flame
Summary: Secret Wars happened. Time to close the gap.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Reverse Bang 2020





	Gap

**Author's Note:**

> Be gentle this is my first time on AO3 after lurking here and this pandemic is kicking my ass.
> 
> Wrote this for the SteveTony RBB 2020 for the kind oestentia and her genius art. LINKING SOON.

“Wake up sleeping beauty.”  
It’s Tony.  
It shouldn’t be Tony.  
But Tony sits down on his bedside.  
//Their// bedside.  
“Coffee?”  
“Since when do you get out of bed before me?”  
I know it’s a dream. I still have to ask.  
“Tsktsktsk. You know I don’t, Steve. Nothing escapes Captain America.”  
//You do.//  
It’s a dream, dream-memory.  
It escaped me then.  
All the the signs of sleepless nights spent in the armoury, in labs, away from Avengers Tower are there in the memory.  
“You escape me,” I whisper and see Tony smile, feeling my heart constrict.  
I never told him…

//// — — ////

… because he betrayed me. 

//// — — ////

I wake up to a dark bedroom.  
My shoulder is throbbing.  
My own fault for joining my Unity Squad for their last outing. I know they don’t need my help in the hands on way I prefer. I know with the serum failing I’m no longer the the hero I was.  
My own fault.  
I swing my legs out of the bed slowly.  
Even getting up isn’t easy anymore.  
The left knee hurts. And it’s not from the last mission. It just hurts all the time.  
“Happens when you’re age catches up,” I mutter into the dark room.  
There’s no smell of coffee. No noises from the kitchen.  
No company waiting for me downstairs.  
My phone blinks and I know it’s messages from SHIELD. One of them a reminder to turn myself in for a medical today.  
I ignore it.  
Getting up is what I focus on and it’s taking all my intention.  
Everything takes me longer these days and I know it. Nobody would catch me admitting how much it grates on me.  
I’m spry for an older fellow but not as spry as the older fellow I used to be in the days when the Avengers made their friendly jokes about the dinosaur in the kitchen.  
Age catches up to all of us and I tell myself I had it coming for a long time.  
I still think that growing older isn’t the problem.  
i look around the dark bedroom before forcing myself up and pushing the curtains away from the windows letting the morning in. It doesn’t help the room nor my mood.  
My eyes fall on the the untidy bed and I remember the tendons of my dream.  
//Nothing escapes Captain America.//  
“Only life,” I say to myself, being my only audience.  
Outside the window Brooklyn greets me with its familiar sight. It’s a momentary respite.  
Then I go around my business, cleaning up, getting dressed, making breakfast.  
I let the news play in the background, waiting for news of last nights outing to be discussed.  
Instead I head another familiar name and look up against my better judgement. “Captain America and the Avengers saved the day!”  
It’s Sam looking at the cameras.  
Sam in his winged Captain America suit.  
It brings a proud smile to my face without fail to see him like this. I gave him the shield and he’s been pushing to make the suit, the shield and the name his without losing his own history.  
But it’s not just him.  
Iron Man, wearing an unfamiliar and more angular uniform stands at Sam’s back. Thor stands to Sam’s right, her blond hair wildly flying around her silver mask. Ms Marvel is with them, the young Spider-Man who I’ve seen more and more reports about is also with them as are Nova and Vision.  
Avengers.  
It stings a bit to hear the name.  
It stings to see Iron Man beside Captain America and know it’s not me. It stings to know that even if it were things would not be easy between us.  
I don’t want to feel terrible just looking at the red and gold armour but I can’t shake the feelings of betrayal and anger that linger. Tony and I — something there broke that won’t ever be fixed again.  
I switch off the news and drink my coffee.  
Time to check in with SHIELD.  
I should find the time to talk to Sharon, reach out to Sam.  
Instead I stand in my kitchen feeling weirdly like I’ve missed my chance to talk to Tony before we’ll be forced to.  
How do you talk about something like this though?  
The world ended, broke, shattered and was put together again. Tony did terrible things. Unspeakable things.  
Now the world is back, recreated, slightly changed, impossibly new and bright after having shattered and fallen into darkness and multiverses disarray.  
But what happened… I can’t just forget.  
The loneliness of the apartment descends upon me like a terrible cloud of thick fog.  
I miss Tony.  
I hate that I miss him.  
I hate that with how frail I feel I miss him more.  
He was ready to destroy worlds, murder whole planets. He did unspeakable things.  
The last memory I have is of fighting him. Old man in an armor against a mad man-lover who betrayed me.  
How can I forgive?  
I should be out of the door and on my way to SHIELD.  
My feet carry me back to the bedroom. There’s something I have to check.  
I know exactly where to look because I avoided looking since the world righted itself.  
I open the drawer. The one drawer I try to avoid every time I’m in here.  
The small black ring box is in there.  
The sight of it crushes me.  
It makes me feel more fragile than this aging body can.  
It’s the ring I bought for Tony.  
Before.

//// — — ////

Before I can call Sam, Captain America turns up. He catches me right before I can reach my flying car parked on the roof. Perks of being a Commander.  
I grin at him. I am always glad to see him and today is no exception.  
“Captain America,” I greet him.  
“Will never get old hearing it out of your mouth.”  
“That why your here? Need a bump to your ego?” It’s a joke.  
“Maybe,” Sam answers and grins back at me. “Can’t say it hurts when everyone else is taking issue with it.”  
“Surely not everyone?” I narrow my eyes. Surely not Tony and the others. “Surely not the Avengers?” I ask.  
Sam laughs. “You heard. About the Avengers?”  
“News travel fast when your spending retirement in an intelligence agency.”  
“That thing you did with Rogue and Deadpool of all people? That’s what you call retirement?”  
I move around the car to open the door and I am leaning against it in what I hope is casually. I don’t want Sam to look at me and see me limp.  
Age.  
I’m not ashamed of it.  
Men I went into war with died ling before I woke up. Some I met and they’d lived their lives to get where they were.  
Old age is a badge of honour and I wear it with pride even if the story of my life that led to raging isn’t one shared by many of my compatriots.  
Perhaps I had imagined it differently.  
Growing old with somebody hadn’t always been at my fingertips.  
But I can admit that I imagined that one day, when I retired it wouldn’t be to spend the rest of my old age working so I wouldn’t be stuck in an empty apartment.  
“Touché,” I say. “I’m not retired per say.”  
Sam chuckles. “I wouldn’t expect any less of you, Commander.” He salutes. “You okay with this?”  
“Are you?” he asked and lets himself fall into the driver’s seat.  
“Building a team with that name? Yes, absolutely.”  
“Who is taking issue with it then?”  
“Haven’t you seen the news lately? There’s a lot of push back for Cap these days, now that it’s me.”  
“The shield and uniform puts you in the spotlight and that puts a big target on your back. Avengers are working out for you?”  
Sam nods and shrugs. “Stark is building us a place to meet.”  
“He would.” My heart skips a beat. I’m proud that my voice doesn’t change inflection at all.  
“We’re a strange team,” Sam adds. “Not sure we’re comfortable with each other.”  
I look up at Sam who has walked up to the side of the car. “You and Tony?”  
“All of us. We’re rebuilding. All of us trying to figure out where we are and what place we’re in. Not sure a bunch of teenagers is making it any easier. He’s good with them.”  
“He?”  
I know who Sam is talking about. I draw it out because I have a masochistic streak.  
“Stark.”  
The worst thing is that I can imagine it too well. He never let himself be the mentor but he had a knack for it.  
It doesn’t fit. However I look at it it’s a conundrum. The man who had callously sentenced worlds to final oblivion was at his core a kind man who didn’t know when to accept his limitations.  
I know how it is. I do keep telling me it’s different for me.  
Because I know right from wrong.  
“Tony needs the Avengers as much as you do,” I say. “He’s better when he’s not alone.”  
It’s not what Sam expected to hear from me.  
“Besides,” I add, “there should always be Avengers.”  
I salute him.  
“And a Captain America.”  
I start the car, wave good-bye with one hand.  
I hope the wince when I jar my shoulder is lost on Sam.

//// — — ////

I don’t know why I cary the ring box in my pocket.  
It belongs back in that secret drawer where I can avoid thinking about it.  
I tell myself it’s because I’ll return it. Sell it.  
I could throw it into the Hudson and make sure nobody ever finds it.  
It would be easy avoiding it then.  
The SHIELD doctor who is examining me looks uncomfortable. He’s young and only has a level 2 SHIELD rank.  
“Did you draw the short straw this morning?” I ask. It’s a lame attempt at lighting the mood.  
“Sir, of course not, sir,” he says and looks caught.  
“Tell me,” he says. “I can take it, son.”  
I sound like an old grumpy general and it’s funny. I talked like that before too and never thought of it. But now my outwardly age fits the sentiment.  
“You should use the cane, sir. The knee…”  
I grunt and then nod. “I know, I know. No spring chicken anymore.”  
The young man looks uncomfortable. He nods. “Use the cane, sir.”  
I don’t have it with me.  
I should get used to it.  
No medicine agains old age.  
Out of pride I try not to limp as I leave the examination room. I smile at the nurse.  
“Wow, Charlie, wow,” one of the other nurses whispers. “Do you know who that is? It’s Captain America!”  
A blonde woman looks up from the papers in front of her and I can feel her eyes on me as I press the elevator button.  
I’m proud that my hearing is still acute. I wonder when it will start to fail me too.  
“Nah,” she means. “That’s not Captain America. Just some old guy. The real Captain America is a real hottie.”  
I step into the lift and don’t turn around before the doors are closed, wondering if she was thinking of Sam or a me without wrinkles.

//// — — ////

“How are you holding up?”  
Sharon looks as good as ever.  
I grin and it comes easy. “Watching the kids play,” he says and nods towards younger agents who are watching them walk towards the war room.  
“It’s easer to scare them isn’t it?”  
They laugh together.  
At one time I thought retirement would be shared with her. Somewhere far away from SHIELD.  
The ring in my pocket feels like an acid coated memory. Even now I can’t forget that Tony would have been the one.  
The only one.

//// — — ////

I sit down on a bench and watch the Hudson.  
I know it’s easy to get up, take the box and throw it.  
I could still throw it far enough sore shoulder and all.  
There’s no good reason for me to get up and carry it home instead.

//// — — ////

“Wake up sleeping beauty.”  
It’s that dream again.  
My nightmare of lost chances.  
The memory of deepest betrayal.  
“Why would you have done if I’d asked you to marry me,” I ask Tony in the dream and his face freezes. “Would you have agreed to marrying me, knowing you’d taken my memories?”  
“Yes,” Tony says.  
I wake up.

//// — — ////

The reason why I carry the ring becomes no less clearer with time.  
Tony and I cross paths once at an incident.  
He takes the helmet off and I’m surprised to see him do it by hand, carry it leaning against his armoured hip. “Steve.”  
“Stark,” I return. Calling him Tony is too much right now.  
He takes the hint, nods to himself.  
I know it’s not an easy time for him. Some things are back to normal, but some unease with Iron Man and Tony Stark remains. His company struggles.  
This is about the extend of the acknowledgment. I don’t want to have him look at me too long, catalog the lines of my ageing face. The person he betrayed was someone from the world before all this — before we set out to kill each other at the end of the world.  
I prefer speaking to Captain America. Sam and I wave at the crowd together giving people something for their social media feeds.

//// — — ////

I only realise that Tony sold the Tower weeks later.  
I’m not sad.  
No way would have led me back there — to the room we shared and the memories we made together.  
The ring box feels like it weighs a little more today.  
I will get rid of it tomorrow.

//// — — ////

The news of Tony’s assumed death spreads like wildfire. My first reaction is numbness.  
I remember what it’s like to stand beside an exploding grenade. Your ears ring and your body is numb with the shock of the blast.  
This affects me in the same way.  
Sound is drowned out.  
Nothing reaches me.  
I think: “I was going to leave //you// behind this time.”  
“How?” I //need// to know.  
“His company people are spinning it this way and that. Rhodes seems to have opinions. Stark was after a criminal syndicate or something.”  
“Nobody knows?”  
“He never shared information with us.”  
In the early days Tony shared information with Steve — not always readily but he //shared//.  
This comes so sudden and out of the blue that his mind doesn’t want to catch up.  
Sam calls me. “SHIELD knows nothing?”  
“Don’t the Avengers?” I snap back. Sam has nothing to do with this of course. He’s not the reason for my anger and not the reason for the contradictory emotions it brings up.  
Why is everything so overwhelming?  
The ring rest in my pocket.  
I planned on selling it today.  
Now I won’t.  
Memento mori.  
These days I’m only a step away from the grave. This is a fitting reminder not to squander what little time I have left.

//// — — ////

“Sir?”  
It’s the same young doctor as before and he studies me with a furrowed brow.  
I don’t want to be unfriendly. Today I have little patience. “Tell me straight out. No pussyfooting around the issue.”  
“You should take it — slow.”  
“Slow?”  
“Missions, sir. You should not go out yourself. Let others go in the field.”  
“Others go in the field every day.”  
“Yes, sir. I know. I meant to say —”  
“That I’m old. And you’re right. Changes very little.”  
I get up from the chair.  
“Sir, it could be a liability.”  
My shoulder hurst too much today to whirl around and glare at him. I lean on the cane I brought today and turn slowly. “You’re the first one who dares call me a liability to my face. Interesting that a doctor is the first to find the courage.”  
He looks caught.  
Someone put him up to it.  
I nod. “I’m not done yet. I will take it under advisement for now.”  
I walk out leaning on the cane, aware that the nurses give me cursory glances this time but say nothing.  
Retirement.  
It sounds tempting when you have a life or someone to go to.  
There’s nothing for me.  
The betrayal still sits deep and won’t be forgotten.  
But this isn’t the end I wanted for Tony

//// — — ////

I give it a day.  
Then another.  
I call Rhodes.  
He gives me some details that are new to me.  
“You think he isn’t dead?”  
“I want to think he isn’t dead, Steve. That’s something different.”  
“Why?”  
“Why what?”  
“What makes you think he’s alive?”  
“He’s been involved in a complicated spy game. I can’t explain it to you. He shared what he thought he needed to share. He was looking for his parents and old girlfriends dropped in. The connections aren’t clear to me.”  
“Parents?”  
In the middle of the world righting itself it slipped my mind.  
More and more things these days slip my mind.  
I tried to ignore it, blame it on the shattering of the the multiverse. Things are changed and obviously that’s why some things escape me.  
“He’s adopted.” Rhodes can’t know that it fills me with relief that I still remember the detail.  
It’s a minor detail for me. Tony never spoke to me about it. Not in depths.  
Sometime between space and breaking the world his strained relationship with Howard Stark had become an identity crisis of bigger proportions. That Tony hadn’t talked about it more tells me only that I wasn’t in on another secret.  
“Had he found his parents?”  
“Last time I checked he hadn’t.”  
“When was that?”  
“Why is that even important? I’d look into the girlfriends who were steeling tech.”  
“What tech?”  
There’s silence on the other end.  
Does the man think I shouldn’t be told?  
“People are always trying to get their hands on his stuff.”  
“But?”  
“This is organised. AIM level. Maggia level. I don’t know. He never opened up about the details.”  
“How very Stark of him.”  
“How very Tony of him,” Rhodes affirms.  
He sounds fond.  
On the other hand I think that even in death Tony found a way to be a betrayer.

//// — — ////

i don’t tell anyone else that I look into Tony’s disappearance and presumed death.  
Nobody thinks I would either.  
The Unity Squad members are the only ones who realise I’m preoccupied and Deadpool becomes his more annoying self.  
“None of your business. Go avenge with the others,” I tell him.  
He shrugs and I’m not sure he’ll heed me at all.  
With a little misdirection I am confident nobody will find out what I’m looking into when I log into our equipment.  
I’m not the best with this. (In days past this is something Tony would have done for me.) Anyway, I worked as an agent and an Avenger for so long that I picked up necessary skills — and I can rely on the fact that nobody will expect me to be looking for Tony.  
//I// can’t believe I’m looking for him either.  
Old age has mellowed my anger or heightened my need for closure.  
At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

//// — — ////

It becomes a matter of pride to find Tony or find out how he died at least and do so on my own.

This is //my// mission.

Maybe my last.

I don't owe it to the love who mind wiped and betrayed.

I owe it to myself and the memory of a live that I wanted for a time.

//// — — ////

With every clue I turn up I realise Tony’s alive.  
The misdirection is subtle at first.  
Money that was put into hidden accounts. Identities that were set up to give Tony a fall back if he ever needed it.  
I wonder if the paranoia is new or something that has been fed by the times Tony lost everything. How much fear does it take for someone who had gone public with a secret identity to start building new levels of secret identities for futures that might never come.  
I’m not the right person to judge.  
All of my adult life was spent among agents and masks. 

//// — — ////

I reach an impasse when I follows Tony’s trail to an address that turns out to be an empty warehouse.  
My knee hurts so badly today that I put more and more weight on the cane.  
It annoys me.  
Makes me wonder.  
I’m doing this for myself.  
To find out what’s going on.  
Doubt niggles. Does Tony want to be found or has he found an exit strategy?  
Am I making this mine?  
Last mission of an old soldier?  
Sounds like an acceptable end when I think it.  
But I was never good at fooling myself.

//// — — ////

Three cities later, I find another warehouse.  
This one is stuffed with weapons and I shouldn’t have such an easy time of it to break in.  
There’s very little agility left in me. To my surprise none is needed.  
I circumvent two alarms and a special lock.  
That’s all.  
Then I find myself in an armoury that would put the US military to shame.  
There’s everything from old AIM guns to SHIELD rifles and Kree artefacts. My mouth goes dry.  
I can see at a glance that there’s enough firepower here to take on SHIELD and SWORD.  
I type a quick code into my communicator to call for backup. This is no longer about my own stubborn attempts at finding peace.  
I haven’t even hit sent when a hard blow connects with the back of my head and I go down, groaning in pain.  
“Old guy thinks he can just walk in here.”  
I am ready to pounce, or as ready to punch as I am these days — but there’s nobody standing over me.  
“Didn’t even hear us coming.” And disembodied voice is all I here. Not even a shadow is moving. I follow my ears placing a strike and am rewarded with a grunt. My fist connects with something,  
Something else connect with my ribs.  
I go down groaning.  
“Stupid, as if nobody would stand guard.”  
I fall unconscious. 

//// — — ////

I wake up in a sitting position. The air is stale. My leg is chained to the floor. I contemplate the sight of the chain and try to get my sight to focus.  
“Tell me you have a plan?”  
I startle and look over.  
Beside me Tony’s chained up in the same way.  
“You’re alive.”  
“You’re stating the obvious.”  
It’s the confrontation I’ve been waiting for.  
“Did you need the arsenal to kill planets?”  
Tony’s face goes blank. “Low blow,” he says quietly.  
“On target?”  
“No!!!”  
“Then why this charade? Sam came to me. If you’re not keeping secrets why…”  
“I went undercover!”  
“Good job you did of it!”  
“Terrible job!”  
“Agreed!”  
“And you’re so much better??? Where is your backup? You’re Cap! You’re smart! You didn’t come alone, right?”  
I’m about to throw it back at him. Then I realise my watch is gone. There’s no way of knowing that the message actually went out. “I sent a warning.”  
Tony lets his head fall against the wall. “Great. We’re saved then.”  
I mirror his position. It’s hard on my knee.  
“Why are you here, Steve?”  
I have no satisfying answer. “I wanted to know what happened to you.”  
After a pause Tony asks: “Why?”  
I shrug.  
“Wanted to make sure I don’t come back.”  
I shrug again.  
We’ve been here before: picking up the pieces. It’s never been this bad before.  
“There’s nothing I can say to make it better and there’s nothing I can do to make myself forget this time.”  
“You should remember, Tony. You killed worlds.”  
“I did. It haunts me. What I did. What I thought I had to do.”  
“It should.”  
“Right. Thank you for saving us all, Steve. Great job.”  
We both know someone else saved us. The details are impossible to put together now. All implications are terrible.  
“You would do it again.”  
Tony doesn’t answer.  
I nod.  
Then he says: “Some of it. Some of it, no. I don’t know.”  
To my surprise his head sinks against my shoulder. “There’s no way to apologise.”  
I agree.  
But I don’t shove him away.  
“Why did you come, Steve?”  
I never shy back from the truth.  
“I wanted to see you again.”  
“Really?” Tony pulls away to look at me. “I thought if it ever came to that it would be to punch me right in the face again.”  
“I’ll consider it.”  
It hurts to think. I’m not about to just forgive everything.  
I want to land a blow too.  
I know just how. The ring box is heavy in my hand and it’s still exactly where I put it. I pull it out and show it to him.  
“I’m still angry. Angrier. I had plans and then you betrayed me.”  
I give him the box and he looks at it, stricken.  
“When? When were you going to ask me?”  
“I had the ring for a few months. Was waiting for the right time.”  
Tony gasps.  
Tears prick his eyes.  
“I’m sorry,” he means.  
I nod. “I’m not. This way a divorce wasn’t necessary.”  
Tony shakes his eyes. “It would have been different.”  
It sounds like an empty promise. These things are in the past.  
The loneliness is still lodged inside if him like a festering sore.  
“Plan,” he says. “You have a plan to get out if here? How are the guards invisible?”  
Tony huffs and straightens his shoulder. “My tech,” he says sourly. I know him well enough that he must hate this.  
He’s still holding the box.  
“I can get the door open, but it’s still just you and me against the rest of them until I get to my armour.”

//// — — ////

Tony lockpicks our shackles with a pin he’d been saving for this very thing. By the time he does so, the floor shakes.  
“Not good,” he means. “They will move the things out of the armoury.”  
“Because we found them?”  
“Because that was always the plan.”  
Opening the door takes Tony a little longer.  
“Are we under surveillance.”  
“I would keep us under surveillance if I were them, Steve.”  
I nod.  
So whoever is out there knows we're trying to get out.  
Better get ready.  
Tony quickly explains to me where we will likely find the armour.  
“Even if we get to it, we’re outgunned.”  
“We faced worse odds,” I remind him.  
“Better times,” he says and looks worried.  
We stalk our way through the corridors. The floors are vibrating again. I stumble. Tony catches my arm.  
Up ahead is the armoury but we go where Tony thinks he can find the Iron Man suit.  
That’s when all hell breaks loose above us.  
It sounds like weapons are being fired.  
“Competition?” Tony asks.  
He breaks open the keypad that keeps the next door lock. I watch his hands move as he does it and remember better times, my younger body, the things we used to get up to in our room in the tower.  
It makes me angry.  
But I miss it.  
I miss him.  
This betrayer. My darker side. My death-bringing lover  
I reach out for his hand, am distracted by the way my wrinkled hand looks against his skin.  
Our eyes meet and I look away.  
It’s not the first time he sees me but right now I find the distance unbearable, even worse the gap my age has built up.  
“I wanted to got old with you,” I admit and it’s an accusation as well.  
He freezes.  
Beside us the door slides open and we see the propped up red and gold of the Iron Man armour.  
Across the hallway guards drops they're stealth cloaks and I’m catching them just in time to cry out Tony’s name and push him to the side.  
A shot is fired.  
“Steve!”  
I feel the pain. It’s jarring and terrible. It rips through my body and I smell singed uniform and blood. I look down. My stomach turns.  
“Steve!”  
The floor shakes while I go down and my head connects with it.  
“Steve! Don’t leave me!”  
Tony.  
“Steve! Hold on.”  
Sam.  
I hear no more.

//// — — ////

The beeping grows louder. I turn to shut down the alarm.  
i remember my strained shoulder too late. But I can’t move at all. Something is wrong. My eyes won’t open. The beeping grows louder.  
“He’s waking up.”  
“Is he?”  
Tony? Tony is here.  
He shouldn’t be here.  
I shouldn’t be here.  
Someone moves around.  
“What was that?”  
It’s Tony. He beside my bed.  
It remind me of our room, our bed, Avengers Tower. It takes another attempt for me to open my eyes.  
I am greeted by a white ceiling.  
“What were you trying to do, Steve? Dying on my watch? Everyone would blame me.”  
My head rolls over and I’m greeted by the sight of Tony.  
Tony sitting in a corner. In his hand is the little ring box. He’s staring at it.  
“I’m old,” I say and hate the weakness that I can’t hide from him. “You have a lot to make up for.”  
He sits up. The words hurt. “True. But don’t think I’ll let you go like this.”  
Under different circumstances I would shrug. But I can’t.  
Tony is still fingering the box, turning it this way and that. “You should have asked me.”  
“It would be worse now,” I say.  
Tony shakes his head. “It would be different.”  
I would like to believe him. I’m not sure I ever will.  
He inches closer with his chai and looks at me. “You wanted to grow old with me?”  
The answer is obvious.  
“I grew old all by myself,” I say.  
Tony nods.  
“If I’d ask you to marry me, would you…”  
“No,” I say. It’s a screwball thought. “We’re too far apart.”  
Tony’s fingers tighten around mine and he looks down at the box, pale and tired.  
“If I asked now,” I say and stare at our laced fingers — old and young.  
“Yes,” Tony whispers. “I would say yes. But you won’t ask.”  
I cough.  
It’s absurd to even entertain the thought.  
It’s the loneliness, the opiates, that are clouding my mind.  
He sets down the box beside my arm and I grab it weakly.  
after a moment’s contemplation I shove the box back at him.  
“Keep it.”  
He stares.  
“Don’t get lost again,” I warn. “I’ll come for you.”  
“I’ll count on it.”  
He stays while I wait for the doctors, tells me how both our teams found us and got us out. The gap between us is still wide, but not unbridgeable.  
I don’t say it.  
He doesn’t say it.  
It’s as close as we’ll come to admitting.  
We’re still drawn to each other.  
We’re still in love.


End file.
